As a chemist by day and a historiographer by night (and sometimes by lunch!) I always like those opportunities when the two worlds "collide"!Some of my very first writing projects were with a great industry magazine put out by the American Chemical Society called Today's Chemist. Unfortunately it is now defunct, but I did get the opportunity to write some article for them a few years back, including "An Officer and a Chemist" (about the early history of the chemistry department at West Point), "A Chemist is Loyal, Helpful..." (about the history of the chemistry merit badge), and - the topic of this post: "Today's Toy Becomes Tomorrow's Trade," about the history of chemistry sets!
One of the great parts about writing the article was soliciting stories from chemists about their memories of chemistry sets...read the article and you'll see!
I also like to collect chemistry set ephemera, including old advertisements, some of which you'll see below...these are from the 1910s to the 1940s.
Enjoy!
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